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Press Release -- June 27th, 2012
Source: OnRamp Access
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OnRamp’s Colocation Services Guarantee 100% Uptime for Companies Threatened by Anticipated Disruptions to the Texas Power Grid

AUSTIN, TX – OnRamp Access, an  Austin-based Data Center operations company, provides Colocation services to businesses in the Texas region  that cannot afford the potential loss of power projected by the Electric  Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) as energy use in the state continues to  reach new heights. A recent study released by ERCOT, the grid operator for most  of Texas, anticipates potential electricity shortages within the coming decade  as a result of the insufficiencies in power output and increased demand  expected for the region in the next few years. In 2011, ERCOT narrowly avoided  power grid failure by rotating outages in the winter and issuing six  conservation alerts when summer heat reached record highs.

The “Capacity,  Demands and Reserves (CDR) Report”, released by ERCOT in late May 2012, predicts  a decreased electric generation capacity and higher peak demand of energy usage  by as early as 2014. This creates a lower target planning reserve margin than  required by 2010’s standards for contingencies, which includes positive  economic status and high summer temperatures as catalysts for increased energy  consumption. The cause for concern is the related brownouts and potential  blackouts associated with a power grid under such stresses.  To heighten the severity of this situation, ERCOT  believes this problem will worsen in the following year and continue in a trend  of increasingly negative reserve margins foreseeably until 2022. As in the case  of the outages experienced last year, server downtime translates to missed  revenue opportunity for businesses running e-commerce websites and major  concerns for healthcare providers in need of accessing critical patient data in  an emergency. OnRamp’s state-of-the-art Data Center was designed with redundancy,  reliability and security in mind, enabling it to withstand extensive power  outages. These considerations allow OnRamp to offer colocation customers a 100%  uptime guarantee.

“Without an adequate  supply of power, it is hard to guarantee the reliability of systems and  accessibility of data maintained through an ‘in-house’ data storage operation,”  said OnRamp’s Founder Chad Kissinger. “OnRamp boasts several advantages in the  maintenance and delivery of power required for its client’s racks, which provides  assurance for its customers considering the future straining of the power grid  expected from the region.”

The individual  components which support the data center’s operation allow the company to  mitigate risks of power fluctuations, such as brownouts, for its clients. All  distortions to utility power are removed by sending them through one of  OnRamp’s Uninterruptable Power Sources (UPSs) to undergo a double conversion  process. This ensures that electrical output power from the UPS is completely  clean, computer grade power. In addition, OnRamp uses Power Distribution Units  (PDUs) to act as step down transformers and circuit breakers to provide basic  shock protection to these systems.

While other data  centers and many “in-house” data storage facilities account only for enough  backup power to ensure their servers remain up and running, OnRamp maintains  its complete environment with enough backup power supply  to keep the entire data center functioning in  the event of temporary power loss. This means, with record breaking summertime  temperatures, OnRamp is prepared to keep its clients’ systems completely stable  by meeting both power infrastructure and cooling needs.

OnRamp is fed from a  high priority power substation dedicated to serving the AMD Semiconductor  factory, the VA Hospital, and the new Austin Energy control center. In addition  to this advantage, the company operates at an (n+1) level of redundancy, meaning  it provides a minimum of one additional critical mechanical component for each  of its power, A/C, internet connectivity, network connections and various other  systems. This enables the company to remove a single component for service and  repairs while continuously running its operation at full capacity 24/7/365.

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